Unknown Insect

I found this insect near our Rose bush (here in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area) while gardening… It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this kind of bug and I have no clue what it is

Can anyone identify it?

Unknown Insect

What kind of grass is this?

My friend has this grass in her front yard… Now that our lawn is turning slightly brown, I’m considering switching it to this type of lawn which I believe is less maintenance. The grass leaves are wide and it remains low growing, almost growing horizontally.

Does anyone know what kind of grass this is?

What kind of grass is this?

What’s this?… Unknown Tree at St. Vincent Parking Lot…

I saw this tree with reddish leaves on a tree at our church’s parking lot (Northern San Francisco Bay Area/zone 9b).
Anyone know what this tree is?

Unknown Plant (Photo 2 of 3)

I also have another photo here.
I saw some seeds and collected some.

Unknown Plant (Photo 3 of 3)

[Update] It’s Purple-leafed Hop-bush – Dodonaea viscosa ‘Purpurea’ (Family: Sapindaceae)

Another Busy Gardening Day…

I started the day off harvesting some Swiss Chard ‘Green’ for lunch… My Mom used it in Filipino dish called Nilagang Manok, which literally translated means Boiled Chicken. I really love Swiss Chard, including the stems which remains firm when cooked. They are not stringy like some Bok Choy stems.

After lunch, I when to the garden and did a bunch of seed sowing. A few years ago, I experimented with winter sowing. I used milk jugs as containers, but didn’t have such good luck. I think the base didn’t have enough soil and it dried out too quickly. This winter, I’m going to use 6-8 inch pots as the minimum size. I also used standard 1-gallon containers. I filled the pots lower than if I were to plant a plant in them. This will leave some protection when the seedling emerge. I used plastic covers with elastic sewn in the edges to cover the pots. These were pretty cheap; I think the box came with 12-18 covers for $1. This will keep the soil from drying out and I think the elastic may even help keep the slugs out… which is another problem I had previously. I sowed the following seeds:

Agrostemma ‘Ocean Pearl’
Alyssum ‘Gold Dust’
Zinnia (Fall 2005)
Mystery Flower (maybe Gazania Daisy?)
Sunflower Lemon Queen (old seeds that I found hidden away in storage)

I wanted to get rid of some really old seeds like the Sunflower above and I also found two packets of Radishes from 1984!!! I emptied the two packets (Radish ‘Red Deveil B’ and Radish ‘White Icicle’) into a 12 inch pot… I don’t really expect them to grow, but if any are still viable, here’s their change to grow.

I planted a 10 inch pot with lots of Cilantro seeds that I harvested last year. I hope the Cilantro grows densely so we can harvest a lot. I then replenish one of the 3-gallon GeoPots that we harvested the Purple Bok Choy from and planted a bunch of Lettuce ‘Wildfire Mix’ that I bought a few days ago. I still had a bunch of seedling, so I potted to into large cell-packs to plant out later.

I’m not sure where to plant the other new plants I got, so I divided the small-packs of Kale ‘Rainbow’ and Kale ‘Siberian’ into 3 inch pots, so they can grow a bit before I figure out where to plant them. I was surprise how healthy the young seedlings were. I was able to divide the Kale ‘Rainbow’ into 17 individual pots!!!… and I’ll give some away to friends and relatives.

I also started grafting, since our Asian Plum tree near the storage is starting to bloom. I grafted four total today and will do more later:

Asian Plum ‘Golden Nectar’ (Graft 2012-01)
Plumcot ‘Burbank’ (Graft 2012-02)
Asian Plum ‘El Dorado’ (Graft 2012-03)
Apricot ‘Canadian White’ (Graft 2012-04)

I hope these take.

Mystery Alameda Street Tree…

As I was walking down Santa Clara Avenue in Alameda, I saw a few trees growing along the street and wondered what they were.

Each branch has 6, 8 or 10 leaves in pairs on opposite sides of the branch. Some of the tree have a bunch of suckers growing at the base of the tree. The younger stems are reddish brown. I crushed a leaf and there is really no distinct odor.

Here is a photo of the whole tree along the street.
Unknown Alameda Street Tree (4/4)

More photos: Continue reading

Mystery Alameda Street Tree…

As I was walking down Santa Clara Avenue in Alameda, I saw a few trees growing along the street and wondered what they were.

Each branch has 6, 8 or 10 leaves in pairs on opposite sides of the branch. Some of the tree have a bunch of suckers growing at the base of the tree. The younger stems are reddish brown. I crushed a leaf and there is really no distinct odor.

Here is a photo of the whole tree along the street.
Unknown Alameda Street Tree (4/4)

More photos: Continue reading

More Mystery Plant Research…

So a day after I posted photos of the mystery plant. I just got a few responses:
Schinus terebinthifolius, which I still don’t think it is because it doesn’t quite match this photo.
– Kentucky Coffeetree, Gymnocladus dioicus, which I don’t think it is.

So I did more research using the Virginia Tech VTree ID Leaf Key website. After all the questions, this is what I came down to this page:
leafy, broad leaves > alternate leaf arrangement > compound leaf > pinnately compound > singly pinnate > serrate, toothed, or spine-tipped leaflet edges

I found two photos that reminds me of our mystery plant. One is a Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra) and the other is a European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia).

The search continues…

Unknown Volunteer

We have a few of these plants volunteering in our garden. This one is growing in between some of my Bromeliads. I don’t know what they are or were they came from, although, I think the bird may have brought the seeds into our garden when they go poop.

Anyone know what these plants are?

There are growing in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area. Zone 9A.

Unknown Volunteer